Eventful Day

Wow, its amazing how long it takes to gain muscle, and how quickly you lose it!  Amazing, and wholly unfair.  I know some types gain muscle as easy as 1 2 3, but not me.  Anyhow, there is a point to my rambling and complaining.  Today I headed out to the barn to meet (and ride) for the first time the little 5y/o mare that my coach had been raving about for quite some time.  I say little, when in truth Cadence is a sturdy 16.1h mare. 

Anyhow, she's got the most beautiful colouring.  She looks a little redder than she is in the picture, but you get the point.  She's got a tiny splotch of white on the inside of her front left, like a half coronet band, and a star but thats it.  She's also exactly my type of horse to ride.  Forward, but extremely soft.  NO leg necessary for upwards transitions; cluck, and she's off.  She is very green as of current, and very right handed, but apparently she's improved quite a bit in the four days she's been down here.  So from what I hear, its mostly just muscling. My only conformation fear is that she looks a little narrow from behind.  I don't think its much, and I didn't even notice till I looked at this picture, so mabe it was just a one time thing, but I'll give it another look.  Its tiny and very minor, but better safe than sorry, eh?

The first video is a quick one of my coach riding her, going in her bad direction.  Then after that, next up was me.  Now, Arty's very foreward, but not overly sensitive to downward aids.  Upward, he's light as a feather, but ask him to slow and its like lalalalala.  Bailey's not slow, but not forward or overly sensitive either.  Oh, and Z (my coach's little dressage mare) is lazy.  Awesome and fun, but lazy.  I'll get to that later though.  So getting used to Cadence was a little tricky for me.  Plus maybe I'm just underestimating myself, but I sort of felt rather out of place on her back.  I felt like I was constantly going to disappointing someone, or do something wrong, or ruin this lovely little mare.  I don't have low self esteem, but apparently that changes when I ride. On another note, I figured out how to edit my videos, so the next one is a short one since the last one took far too long to upload.  I think (so long as I upload the right one) that this should be the first time I trot her.  Either that, or a clip of us cantering in her bad direction.

Anyhow, before I mentioned something about Z.  So after Cadence was done, it was Z's turn.  The objective being to let me see Cadence, but have a lesson on Z.   I was honoured that Lynda (my coach) let me on her again, seeing as I'm the only other person that's been on her back.  She was so much better this week.  Lynda's gradually increasing her work load, so this was her fifth ride this week, and she wasn't overly pleased.  Unfortunately, as her responses were a little lackluster I had to put all my effort into getting her more responsive.  This is where the part about me losing muscle comes in.  She was amazing though, such a gorgeous horse!

Anyhow, my coach wants me to try to ride Cadence a few more times this week before she leaves on Friday, so I'll be out to see her again Monday.